Being

Creative visual thinking is fundamental to us all as human beings as we strive to understand our sense of self and the world. Chartwell seeks to deepen understanding about the importance of art and creative thinking for our future and our wellbeing.

Seeing

Chartwell is an explorer of the visual world. We want to know more about how and what we see. When both the eye and the mind are active, the creative process opens to the artist and viewer. The Chartwell Collection provides the viewer many examples of creative visual thought in action.

Making

Chartwell supports artists as they make and think. Making is an active and connected process, involving the interaction of intention, intuition and intellect with the mediums of the world. Chartwell is making too - making a difference through philanthropy and enabling access to creative activities and research.

Thinking

Chartwell encourages everyone to think about art and the creative process with a commitment to drive an understanding about the significance of the visual arts to general creative thinking. We share a curiosity to know and learn more: an imaginative, ongoing investigation.

Daniel Crooks’ video workAn Embroidery of Voids, acquired from Anna Schwartz gallery in Melbourne in 2014, is the second work of Crooks’ in the Chartwell Collection. It was a central commissioned work in the large Melbourne Now exhibition at the NGV over the summer of 2013/14, installed as a singular projection in a darkened room.Voidsis a slow-moving, steady paced video collage, situating the viewer in a journey through various lanes and in-between spaces which unfold in sequence. While the laneway is an icon of Melbourne’s city life, this work has a wider appeal to a general audience; there is the sense thatVoidscould have been filmed anywhere.

There is a feeling of expectation as each laneway draws nearer; just as you expect to reach the end or vanishing point, the image blends into the next space.Voidstransfixes you as you tunnel through these collaged spaces. The intrigue created in this video through the sense of unfolding space and time lent itself to prolonged viewing, often a challenge for video works. The admission of this work into the collection builds on the representation of Crooks’ practice and allows the public to follow his technical and conceptual developments. (RW, 2014)